Kevin Costner seems to be attracted to crappy movies like a dragonfly
to a pond. Although he has had his share of successes, e.g., Dances
With Wolves, JFK, and Thirteen
Days, he has also been responsible, or at least partly
responsible, for the likes of Waterworld, The
Postman, and For Love
Of The Game. What is annoyingly common in practically
all his films is his identical characterization as a good guy
whom no one understands, and that irritating fake-crying he always
does. There's plenty of that in Tom Shadyac's Dragonfly,
a supernatural romantic thriller written by Brandon Camp, David
Seltzer, and Mike Thompson. Shadyac, who directed comedies like
The Nutty Professor and Liar Liar before switching
to sappy drama with Patch Adams,
did not learn that he should stick with his long suit. This film,
while a well-intentioned investigation into the power of faith
and the possibility of life after death, is so fraught with maudlin
dialogue and ridiculous lapses of reason it successfully hamstrings
its own power to reach the audience.

Costner is Chicago emergency room doctor Joe Darrow, whose
pregnant wife, oncologist and Red Cross volunteer Emily, was tragically
killed in a bus accident in Venezuela. Unable to deal with the
loss, but unable to call on faith because he's an atheist, Joe
throws himself back into his work, but soon begins to have strange
experiences that imply Emily is trying to contact him from beyond.
He hears voices. Kids who have near-death experiences tell him
that she said hello from the other side, and compulsively draw
crooked crosses whose meanings are unclear. And he keeps seeing
dragonflies, which were her favorite insect. Or something.

Thinking he's going crazy, he tells his neighbor (Kathy Bates),
his colleague (Ron Rifkin), and his boss (Joe Morton), who all
tell him, "You're going crazy." But the one person who
believes him is Sister Madeline (Linda Hunt), a nun who thinks
it is possible to communicate during the process of dying, and
that Emily is sending him a message through the patients. "There
are a thousand steps between full consciousness and death,"
she says, "and belief gets you there." Or something.

So Joe gets on a plane and flies to Venezuela, where he finds
out something not only incredible, not only wonderful, but downright
unlikely.

Besides the mawkish dialogue and insufferable scenery chewing,
which director Shadyac seems to encourage from not only Costner
but all his actors, this film suffers from a palpable sense of
Hollywood symbol overkill. It's almost like someone came up with
the "crooked cross" idea and decided to make a film
around it. The symbol is cute, but its significance is idiotic.
Not to mention that Costner's character is one of those heroes
he plays so often, able to figure out obscure hints, jump off
huge waterfalls, and leap tall buildings in a single bound. Gaddoes
anybody have a really big fly swatter? **